Are Governance Practices Associated with Good Results? The Case of Colombia

Since 2007 Colombian listed firms, non-financial and financial, are required to disclose their compliance to a governance country code. The compliance is interpreted as the level of governance and used as independent variable for regressions looking for the determinants of performance and dividends. The results mostly confirm a positive association of governance with performance, and a U-shaped effect of governance on dividend payout. The effect of governance is higher for non-financial firms and for large non-financial firms.